Granted, Steven Adams missed this game do to being in the NBA’s concussion protocol program after sustaining a hit to his head against the Kings on Sunday night. But keep in mind, Blake Griffin is still in street clothes rehabbing his knee from a recent surgery. Also to be mentioned is Chris Paul only played 13 minutes in this game after sustaining a thumb injury in the second quarter.
This was OKC playing on the second night of a road back to back, but to be brutally honest it never appeared the Thunder ever had any intention of putting much energy into this game even in the first half. I guess, the Thunder just wore themselves out nurturing that 17 point lead against the hapless Kings the night before.
I’m not sure if this ranks as the worst Thunder game of this season, but it must be mentioned in the same breath with the road loss to the Kings on the night before Thanksgiving and the loss at Memphis on Dec. 29th. It was a performance of boo-able proportions, perhaps even gong-able.
Without Adams, the Thunder gave up 62 points in the paint and allowed the Clippers to shoot 55% from the field and 43% from three point territory. Without Adams, the Thunder defense was literally a sieve of nothingness. And again this happened with Blake Griffin and Chris Paul playing a combined 13 minutes.
DeAndre Jordan did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to in this game scoring 19 points, grabbing 17 rebounds, and blocking 4 shots. His performance along side of Steven Adams’ absence were the primary storylines.
Russell Westbrook not only didn’t triple double, he basically wasn’t even the best point guard on the floor even after Chris Paul’s early departure, that would have been Raymond Felton on this night. So what I’m writing here is that even without Griffin and Paul playing, the Thunder with Westbrook, Kanter, Oladipo, Roberson, and Payne were never even remotely competitive in this game.
OKC drops to 25-18 on the season and is 4-5 in this very challenging month of January for a Thunder team which in all candor hasn’t shown much overall team improvement since opening the season at 4-0 coming out of the gates. There’s been no jumpstart to date from having Cam Payne back as far as I can discern either. Truth be known, parts of Semaj Christon’s game are about on a par from what we’ve seen from Payne to date. But like I wrote a week ago, Cameron Payne hasn’t played all that much basketball at this level in quite some time.
OKC plays at the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night in what is Round II of the Durant-Westbrook thing. If Steven Adams isn’t able to go Round II could look even worse than what we witnessed last night in Los Angeles. In Round I, OKC actually came out fast with Adams exposing Za Za Pachulia, but then Adams got two fouls and had to sit. The game then changed immediately and it was a rout moving forward with a lot of kissing and groping from Steph, Klay, Durant, and Draymond. You’d have thought those four had been on a bus with Trump and Billy Bush before the game. I know it made me feel akward.
I almost forgot the score…LA 120–OKC 98. Gotta put the score on the recap even when the team plays like they weren’t there.
OKC at Golden State on Wednesday night. Pray for Steven Adams to get well fast.